KATHERINE'S FIRST SABBATH AT HILTON.
Katherine's first Sabbath at Hilton Seminary dawned a perfect
winter morning, and, starting forth in good season, she sought the
little hall on Grove Street, where the few Scientists of the city
met each week to enjoy the service which has become so dear to the
heart of every student of God's word, as spiritually interpreted
according to Christian Science.
She had carefully studied the lesson during the week, and was
therefore prepared to enjoy to the utmost each section as its
point was clearly brought out by the readers, to teach and bless;
and so, when she again turned her steps homeward, she felt calmed,
refreshed and strengthened for the duties that lay before her.
As she was about to enter the building she encountered Prof. and
Mrs. Seabrook, who also had just returned from church.
The former glanced askance at her books, lifted his hat to her
with frigid politeness, and passed on to his study.
Mrs. Seabrook, however, paused and greeted her most cordially,
whereupon Katherine inquired for Dorothy.
"She was not quite as well this morning," replied the mother, an
expression of care and weariness flitting over her sweet face. "My
brother, Dr. Stanley, has been with her while we were at church,
and I hope to find her better, for he always does her good.
Dorothy was greatly attracted to you yesterday, Miss Minturn," she
added, smiling, "and I hope you will find time to drop in to see
her now and then."
"Indeed I will; it will be a pleasure to me, for I love children,"
Katherine replied, cordially, and much gratified to have
yesterday's invitation repeated, while there was a feeling of deep
tenderness in her heart for the long-suffering woman as she passed
on to her room.
After dinner she looked over the Bible lesson for the afternoon.
She was dreading this ordeal somewhat, for she well knew how
widely different is the old theological exposition of the first
chapter of Genesis from its spiritual interpretation, as she had
been taught it according to Christian Science, But she tried to
feel that, if she was called upon to express an opinion, she would
be led to speak wisely and yet be obedient to Prof. Seabrook's
command not to "flaunt her views before the school."
She hoped that he would ignore her altogether, and thus avoid an
awkward situation for them both.
When the class convened she was surprised to find Dorothy seated
in her chair beside her father, and learned afterward that the
girl was often present during the lessons, always giving the
closest attention to what was said, even asking questions
occasionally that puzzled wiser heads than hers.
As was his custom, Prof. Seabrook opened the exercises with
prayer, followed by a familiar hymn. Then he gave a short talk
upon the first chapter of Genesis, as a whole, preliminary to a
more general discussion of it.
He showed himself to have been a critical student of the Bible,
and his remarks were extremely interesting along the line of his
own views. His rhetoric was flawless, his figures apt and
beautiful, his points well made, and he held the undivided
attention of everyone to the end.
"I have given you this talk upon creation as a whole," he
remarked, in conclusion, "because the subject is too intricate and
vast to be discussed in detail--that would require much study and
many sittings--and we will spend the remainder of the hour upon
two questions: What is God? What is man and his relation to God?
Miss Walton, will you tell us what God is, from your point of
view?"
Miss Walton instantly became confused. She had no clear ideas
about God, and after nervously turning the leaves of her Bible for
a moment and blushing furiously, finally said so. The principal
called upon several others, with a similar result. Everyone loved
to listen to him, for his graceful diction was like music in their
ears, but when called upon to express their own opinions they were
all, with a few exceptions, literally tongue-tied. Two or three of
the more thoughtful ones made an attempt to define Deity, but
their definitions, for the most part, were the hackneyed ones of
old theology.
The professor began to look rather weary, especially as he
detected, here and there, a yawn behind an uplifted book. All at
once a peculiar gleam leaped into his eyes.
"Miss Minturn, what is your conception of God?" he inquired,
turning abruptly to her.
The question came almost as an electric shock to Katherine and
brought the quick color to her cheeks.
But she quelled this sense of disquiet instantly.
"God is Spirit," she quietly replied.
"You mean that God is a spirit," quickly corrected the professor.
"That definition has already been given several times; but I am
trying to ascertain your own conception of Deity. Why did you omit
the article?"
Katherine lifted her earnest brown eyes to him, and in them he
read an expression of mingled surprise and appeal, and he knew, as
well as if she had voiced her thought, that she remembered he had
forbidden her to express her peculiar views and wished to obey him
to the letter.
But having put the question, he intended to have an answer of some
kind, while he also experienced some curiosity as to whether she
could give a comprehensive explanation of the term she had used.
"If you purposely omitted the article," he resumed, as she was not
quick to reply, "you must have had a reason for so doing; and,"--
with a more courteous inflection--"as there is supposed to be
perfect freedom in the class, both in asking questions and
expressing opinions, we would like you to explain your position."
"The term 'a spirit' implies one of a kind, or, one of many, does
it not? But I understand God to be Infinite Spirit," Katherine
replied, with quiet self-possession.
"Well, what do you mean by 'infinite spirit?' Define 'spirit,' if
you please."
Katherine was amazed that he should thus pursue the subject. She
wondered if he could be utterly ignorant of the scientific
definition of God. She had supposed that he must have read
something on the subject of Christian Science, or he would not
have been so bitterly opposed to it, or, was he only trying to
drive her into a corner?
However, she saw there was no escape but to follow his lead. He
had now given her license to speak, and she felt that she had no
right to neglect her opportunity.
"Spirit is Mind, Intelligence, Life," she said, using some of the
terms she had employed in talking with Miss Reynolds the previous
day, and which she thought would be readily understood by the
class.
"Why, Prof. Seabrook," here interposed one of the seniors, her
face aglow, her eyes alight, "I like that definition of God. I
never heard it before, but it appeals to me."
The gentleman flushed slightly and acknowledged the observation
with a grave bow, then inquired of Katherine: "And are you
satisfied with that concept of God, Miss Minturn?"
"Yes, sir."
"Don't you think it rather a vague, visionary idea of the
Almighty?" queried the gentleman, with a scornful dilation of his
thin nostrils. "Do you associate no thought of individuality or
personality with Him?"
"Do you mean as human beings are personal and individual?"
Katherine respectfully inquired.
"Well, I must at least have something more tangible than an
unknown quantity for my God," he replied, evasively, as he
hurriedly began to turn the leaves of his Bible in search of a
text. "He is spoken of as a king, ruler, judge, and so forth, and
those terms certainly convey the idea of personality."
"But can you limit or outline Deity, sir? Would not that destroy
the omnipresence of God?"
Again the man changed color a trifle, while, as he continued to
search the pages of his Bible, he became conscious of a sudden
inward shock.
The question had started a new train of thought. Certainly,
infinity, omnipresence, could neither be limited nor outlined;
those were self-evident facts.
There was no yawning in the class now. The attention of everyone
was riveted upon the speakers, while Dorothy leaned forward in her
chair, her earnest eyes glancing from one face to the other, her
eager ears drinking in their every word.
"But what do you say to this passage from Hebrews, Miss Minturn,
where Paul, speaking of Christ, calls Him the express image of
His--God's--person?" [Footnote: Hebrews, 1-3.] demanded the
professor--having found the text he was looking for--with a note
of triumph in his tone which indicated that he had now propounded
an unanswerable argument.
"I have been told that the Greek word, which has been translated
'person' in the text you have read, really means character, and it
is so rendered in my Bible, which is the revised version,"
Katherine replied, as she opened her book and found the passage.
Now Prof. Seabrook, although he prided himself upon being strictly
up to date in everything pertaining to his profession, had
neglected to provide himself with the revised version of the New
Testament. However, now that his attention was called to the fact,
he remembered having heard this text and its change discussed
among brother professors, but it had for the moment escaped his
memory.
Yet he was equal to the occasion, and no one would have suspected
from his manner that he was deeply chagrined to find this young
girl so well versed in the Scriptures and able to so logically
sustain her position upon every point.
"Ah!" he observed, after a moment of thought, and in his blandest
tone, "I have a Greek Testament in my study and will look up the
word later. I find we cannot take up the other question to-day, as
our time has expired, and"--closing his books--"we will leave it
for another lesson. The class is dismissed."
He arose as he concluded, and the young ladies filed quietly out
of the room; but, once beyond hearing, they gathered in groups to
talk over the interesting discussion that had been so suddenly cut
short.
Katherine paused beside Dorothy's chair on her way out, and made
some pleasant reference to their meeting of the previous day, and
then would have passed on, but the girl threw out her hand and
caught hers, thus detaining her.
"You must have studied the Bible a great deal, Miss Minturn, to
get such lovely thoughts about God," she said, in an eager tone.
Katherine flushed, for she knew Prof. Seabrook was listening, and
felt that she had already said enough regarding her views.
"Yes, I am very fond of studying the Bible," she simply returned.
"Papa," continued Dorothy, turning to him, "how could you say that
Miss Minturn's idea of God is vague and visionary?"
"It certainly seems so to me, dear," her father briefly returned.
"Well, it doesn't to me," was the positive rejoinder; "not half
so--so queer as to think of Him as a man, or three men all mixed
up together in one, and able to be everywhere at once," and there
was a look of thoughtfulness in the girl's large, blue eyes which
betrayed a mind on the alert.
"I think we will not talk any more about that now," said her
father. "You must be tired from sitting here so long, and ought to
rest."
"You know I never get tired in the Sunday class, papa," cried
Dorothy, and still clinging to Katherine, who had tried to release
her hand, for she was anxious to escape further argument. "And,"
she added, "I want to ask Miss Minturn another question."
"I think I will have to run away, dear," Katherine interposed,
"for it is almost tea time, you know."
"Please--please! haven't you time to tell me just one thing more?"
"Yes, I have time for that, but--" and she lifted a doubtful look
to her principal.
"Papa, may I ask her?" pleaded the girl, intuitively realizing
that her new friend feared his disapproval.
The man never refused his child anything in reason, and he could
not now, although he felt secretly antagonistic, and his look was
almost stern as he responded:
"Very well, dear, if Miss Minturn will kindly have patience with
you."
"Well, then," and Dorothy eagerly turned again to Katherine, "if
God is Mind, Intelligence and Life, as you said, how can man be
His image and likeness?"
For a moment Katherine was dismayed, in view of the depths
involved in this query, and at a loss how to reply in a way to
clearly convey the truth to this inquiring mind, while a slightly
ironical smile curved the lips of the learned professor, as he
said to himself:
"This is a poser for the young woman."
"You do not think the account of the creation of man as God's
image and likeness refers to this imperfect mortal or physical
body, do you, Dorothy?" she inquired, after a moment of thought.
"Why, yes; I've always supposed it did. I've thought that perhaps
God made him perfect in the first place and then, somehow, He let
him get all wrong. I can't see how or why, though I've heard
ministers and other people say 'it was for some wise purpose.'
It's a great muddle, I think," Dorothy concluded, with a sigh.
"No, God never let any of His children 'get wrong.' He could not,
for 'all His ways are perfect,' you know. The man of God's
creating is the spiritual image and likeness of Himself,"
Katherine explained.
"Oh-o! I begin to see. Why, papa, don't you see? That must be what
that verse means--the express image of His person--His character!"
and Dorothy turned to her father, her face all aglow as she
grasped this new thought.
"No, don't go just yet," she pleaded, as Katherine made another
effort to release her hand. "Tell me this, please: if everybody
became good, perfect in character, would their bodies grow
perfect, too? would sick people get strong and well and happy?"
"I believe God's Word teaches us so," said Katherine, softly, and
wondering why Prof. Seabrook did not put a stop to a conversation
which he must know was trespassing upon forbidden ground.
"How could they? I wish I knew how," said the child, plaintively.
"You know Paul tells us, 'Be ye transformed by the renewing of
your mind,' and to 'put off the mortal and put on the immortal.'"
"'Put off the mortal,'" repeated the girl, with a look of
perplexity, "but how?"
"It is a growth, dear; it is to put out of mind, one by one, every
wrong thought, and think only good thoughts--God's thoughts--and
in this way one grows good, pure and perfect. Let us take a simple
illustration," Katherine continued, as she saw how eagerly the
child was drinking in her words. "You have seen a lily bulb?"
Dorothy nodded.
"It is not at all pretty, and one would throw it away as of no
account, if he did not know of the precious little germ and its
possibilities hidden away inside. We know how, when the warm
sunlight shines upon the spot where it has been put away in the
earth, when the dews and soft rains fall upon it, something begins
to happen down there in the dark; the ugly bulb begins to change,
to soften and melt away; one by one the brown husks drop off and
disappear as the tiny germ within, awakening to a new sense of
life, starts upward to find more light and freedom and a purer
atmosphere. Then two small leaves of living green--harbingers of
better things--begin to unfold; after that a sturdy stalk, with a
bud of promise, appears, and all the time reaching up, up towards
the brightness beyond and above, until at last the pure, perfect
and fragrant lily bursts into bloom."
"That was very prettily told, Miss Minturn; but your figure is
incomplete, for, after all, you have only a material flower--it is
far from being spiritual or immortal," Prof. Seabrook here
interposed.
"Ah!" said Katherine, lifting a pair of sweetly serious eyes to
him, "it is only a simple illustration--a little parable pointing
to spiritual development and perfection, and the pure and flawless
lily is but the type of that which mortal 'eye hath not seen.' The
homely bulb corresponds to the mortal man, wrapped up in the
density and husks of materiality; the tiny 'germ is the symbol of
that ray or spark of immortality that is in every human
consciousness and which, governed by the perfect law of Life,
'whose eternal mandate is growth,' [Footnote: "Science and
Health," page 520.] and nourished by the sunlight of divine Love,
puts off, one by one, the husks, or the mortal man's wrong ways of
thinking and living, and, ever reaching Godward, puts on or
unfolds first the tiny leaves of living green, then the stalk and
bud, and, last, the white flower of purity, which is the image and
likeness of God; and this image and likeness is immortal."
"Oh, what a lovely--lovely story!" breathed Dorothy, with luminous
eyes. "Then, if one never had any but good thoughts, perfect
thoughts, one would grow to be perfect and spiritual."
"That is what I think the Bible teaches."
"I think it is beautiful. I never heard anybody talk like this
before!" cried the child, with a joyful ring in her tones. "And
now tell me how--"
Katherine laughed out musically, and, stooping, kissed the small
hand that she was still holding.
"You dear child! do you know how long we have been talking?" she
said. "I think we must stop right here, and--I hope Prof. Seabrook
does not think I have said too much," she concluded, glancing at
the man who stood like a statue, with an inscrutable look on his
high-bred face.
He made no reply, and the situation might have become awkward if
Dorothy had not exclaimed:
"No, indeed; you haven't said half enough; and will you tell me
some more things that you believe, another time?"
"If--your father gives me permission," Katherine replied, with
heightened color. "Now I must go, for I am sure the bell will ring
in a few minutes."
"Will you--may I kiss you before you go?" begged the girl, who was
used to much petting from everyone, and lifting her pale face to
the bright one looking down upon her and which seemed to radiate
love.
"Yes, indeed," said Katherine, and heartily returned the caress.
"Now, good-by," she added, and, with a respectful bow to her
principal, left the room, whispering to herself as she tried to
put out of thought the misshapen little figure in the chair:
"God never made one of His children imperfect. He made man
upright, and there is no power apart from God."